Today, senior designers working in the office are involved not only with designing day to day projects, but also with providing training, solving problems for lower level designers, and working with customers. Their experience and knowledge are invaluable in many respects. But, consider this:...

As a recruiter, I see the geneses of job dissatisfaction and turnover. You start a job with hopes of being there forever, or at least 10 years, and within a year or two you are back looking at the job market. While the internet has made it easier to search for and find a new job, it also has...

With over 30 years of experience, Roy Aldworth has worked both in office and remote. He currently works on extremely large multifamily residential projects, city block sized up to 7 stories high. He started working from home 8 years ago and was so much more productive it became permanent. There...

Last month, I wrote about the evolution of my Home Office, and I invited our readers to share details about their own. Are they efficient or extravagant? Large or small? Here’s a reply from one of our readers. “I have a Dell Alienware laptop and twin 32” dell monitors. My...

Sitting in my Home Office, after 27 years of working from home, I get it. The perks that come with working from home are great and the freedoms that come with it are priceless. There are downsides too. If you haven’t worked from home long term, I will just say that I hope your positives...

Why aren’t your trussers designing walls and EWP too, as we said they would twenty-five years ago? To pave their way, we would deliver more intelligent (“IntelliBuilt”) and optimized (“OptiFramed”) software, and builders would provide flawless “BIM”...

The goal is the same for both a bonus plan and a performance plan—reward an employee for performance. The higher the position, the more defined are the goals. Not many bonuses that are consistently over $10k are subjective. It can’t be about how well departments out of your control...

How did this Australian component manufacturer become involved in offshoring? It started with a trip to Vietnam in 2004, and it ended much differently than I would have expected! I had been operating my company in Australia, Truss-Rite, for 16 years, selling prefabricated wall framing and...

When it comes to finding the right industry-experienced person to fill a key role, like a designer or plant manager, you have several options. You can DIY and network with employees and industry contacts, engage a recruiter, or place ads and screen candidates internally. I can’t speak to...

 “I’ve looked everywhere, even at my competitors, where can I find truss technicians?” This is a question heard at some point during almost every conversation with component manufacturers these days. The answer isn’t as simple as saying, “Oh, call Truss...